


see through the clouds

by hdnprplflwrs



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Depression, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Piper ships this, and Lou Ellen, confused!will, mention of suicide, poet!Nico, so does Austin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22891387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hdnprplflwrs/pseuds/hdnprplflwrs
Summary: There’s someone who writes about suicide and depression and darkness in the school newspaper, and Will just wants to give them a hug or something.
Relationships: Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang if you squint harder, Jason Grace/Piper McLean if you squint, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 11
Kudos: 127





	see through the clouds

There’s someone who writes about suicide and depression and darkness in the school newspaper, and Will just wants to give them a hug or something.

He’s an avid reader of the Olympian, mostly because Austin does music album reviews and who is he if he doesn’t support his half siblings? Besides, it is actually interesting. It used to be just Percy Jackson and Jason Grace leading the swim and baseball teams respectively to victory, but now there’s Reyna Arellano spearheading advocacy events for gun reform and Annabeth Chase destroying opponents in any academic event. Then there’s the movie reviews column (which Will was glad they added because he had no time for movies, what with his internship at the local hospital), the comics (Will had been engrossed with one by Rachel Dare for a while), opinion pieces, and then the student-submitted literary section.

The student-submitted literary section consists of poems, short stories, jokes (usually commandeered by Connor and Travis Stoll or Cecil Markowitz, Will’s best friend), or other pieces of literary work. Students could submit to it anonymously or not and the identities of those who submitted anonymously are sworn to secrecy by the regular writers and staff of the newspaper.

Which made figuring who the mysteriously depressed poet is all the more difficult.

The poet writes in couplets, all of them seemingly unconnected but to Will (who’s studied them for hours and hours, he’s a bit embarrassed to say) they’re really stemming from one problem.

He might be taking his AP Psychology class a bit too seriously, but all he’s ever wanted to be is a doctor. He’s kind of required to fix people.

He also needs consent, but he stopped his ADHD brain before it could take that train of thought further.

So, he made the executive decision after seeing the first seven couplets in the first edition of the newspaper that year to figure out who it was and maybe subtly help them.

He might need help in that department, though. He’s been told he’s about as subtle as a boulder.

_ who are you to say that everything will be okay _

_ you obviously haven’t lived my life. _

_ death is a cycle, they said. _

_ nice to know she might be a tree. _

_ they say venice is sinking. _

_oh, to sink with it, all our memories washing away with the flood_.

_ you stupid, incorrigible bastard. _

_ you couldn’t wait another century to take her, could you? _

_ i walk a lonely road. _

_ end of story. (how inspiring.) _

_ i watch sun people _

_ wondering how they shine so brightly _

_ she told me me and her are moons, but that’s a lie. _

_ she was my sun and then she wasn’t. _

Sure, all the references to a “she” made Will a little jealous, but obviously the “she” the author referred to had passed and he decided that until he knew the full details of that scenario, he wouldn’t think too much about it.

The second edition, two weeks later, worried Will.

_ i can’t tell if i’m collapsing inward _

_ or exploding outwards _

_ i’m such a coward _

_ i can’t even claw out my own heart _

_ i used to have dreams about following in her footsteps _

_ are they nightmares now? they still taste of heaven. _

_ i can hear their screams to burn in hell when i close my eyes _

_ i would agree, but then i wouldn’t see her _

_ do i just exist to make myself suffer? _

_ is that what this is? _

_ icarus flew too close to the sun and fell _

_ don’t think i won’t blame you for my demise _

_ but i can’t (help) _

_ fall(ing in love) with you _

His poet had a lot of somethings troubling him, and that just makes Will more determined to find him.

There is something peculiar about the couplets, too. They appear hard and shape and deadly on the outside, but there is still hope in the dark words. A floundering, desperate hope, like the poet is clinging to a cliff and someone is just holding onto his pinkie, trying to pull him back on land.

(Austin had let slip that the poet was a he on accident, so now Will daydreamed about a person who had solidified into a male, but the details were still blurry.)

He starts to list of all the junior males that attended Jupiter Demigoode High School. (Thank god for Lou Ellen, who managed to weasel out of Cecil that Will’s poet was a junior—or at least, that he was in one of Cecil’s classes with a lot of juniors, although Lou Ellen wouldn’t say anything more.)(He started to question her motives.) He’s never been more glad that the school directory is pretty easy to access if you know where to go.

Then he started crossing off the people he knows for certain aren’t at all interested in writing. Which isn’t very helpful, considering that he only knows, like, twenty out of the three hundred junior guys.

The third edition gave some more clues, though.

_ i have no one to hold but myself _

_ (my sister has a boyfriend who loves her.) _

_ the sun illuminates everything it shines upon _

_ so i stay in the shadows, wondering if the darkness is enough to conceal my scars. _

_ the candle is haunting, teasing, deliberate. _

_ my one wish is for you to be here with me. _

_ i scream my apologies into the void like some kind of prayer _

_ i wonder if you hear them _

_ he plays his guitar the way my pen flows on paper _

_ how i want him to play my heart as i write his _

_ i beg cold empty footsteps for some echo of the person i knew _

_ cold empty footsteps ring back at me _

_ they call me smart _

_ i’m clearly not, i’m not dead yet. _

Time to take to social media.

Will manages to knock off at least half of the people on his list due to them having more than one sibling or none at all, and then he knocks off some more because they’re in a relationship. (He may have pulled in a few favors for that last one.) He _really_ doesn’t want to make assumptions about who’s depressed or not, because stereotypes were breaking fast and furiously. He was pretty sure Percy was addicted to Sailor Moon; he’s had loud arguments with Leo Valdez about it.

Will wasn’t exactly affiliated with the Percy-Jason-Reyna-Piper-Leo-Annabeth group, but he had a lot of mutual friends with them. It kind of sucked that the most popular group at school was also the most talented, but at least they were pretty chill people. He’s heard worse from his XBox friends.

It did come in handy when he decides to ask Annabeth or Piper if they knew anything. Both of them knew a lot about the student body between them, so he thought it was a safe bet.

At this point, he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to figure out the poet’s identity to stop him from actually going through with his words and offing himself. He liked the poems. He was getting used to them. Like sinking into a hot tub or something.

He liked the idea of finding out who it was. He mulls that thought over as Piper sits down next to him. “What’s up, Will?”

“You write the love advice column, right?” he asks, his feelings now falling into a blob in his mind.

“Yup,” Piper pops the _p_ and opens her bottle of Coke, taking a swig. “Why, found yourself in such a mess that you needed to talk face-to-face?”

“Kind of,” he sighs, toying with the edge of his list of names. “I don’t know. I thought I wanted to know who someone is, but now I don’t know what I’d do with that information.”

“Can you give details, or do you want to keep it vague? I’m fine with either,” Piper prompts, mixing her salad with her fork.

Will follows her example and takes a bite of the shitty burgers the cafeteria provides, thinking about the poet’s poetry and why he started this search in the first place. “I started because I wanted to see if this guy was okay. Now...I kind of just want to thank him for, like, showing me a new side of life.”

Will had always thought of life as things growing, things blooming, things healing. He’d never had experience with death save for goldfish and plants, and even then Will knew that their bodies would become one with nature once more. He’d vaguely thought about it in terms of humans, but this poet had unknowingly shown Will how someone could be depressed.

Will had had a pretty average life. He had been happy, sad, angry, excited, fearful and disgusted. Stressed, anxious, exhilarated, daring, bold. But he hadn’t experienced all-encompassing pain like the poet had.

Which he should probably get used to, if he wants to be a doctor.

“Hmm,” Piper hums, looking over at him thoughtfully as she takes a bite of salad. He goes back to toying with the edge of the paper to avoid her scrutinizing gaze. “So now what? Are you still going to find out who it is or are you going to let them come to you?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Will shrugs helplessly. “Probably the second one, because they’ve been anonymous in the newspaper each edition.”

Piper opens her mouth to say something, then closes it.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.” She’s smiling, thought, and Will has no idea what the hell she’s thinking. “You’ll see.”

The fourth edition:

_ you shine like the sun _

_ unreachable and untouchable _

_ it seems like people leave me alone _

_ they haven’t got the heart to stay _

_ she would’ve liked you a lot _

_ she looks like me and breathes like you _

_ honey, honey, tell me your secrets _

_ the usual price, an eye for an eye _

_ drawing scribbling mindless circles _

_ trying to rid my mind of you _

_ darkness lurks in my heart and what is left reaches for you _

_ always falling short. (how pathetic of me.) _

_ is it too late to jump? (no.) _

_ should i wait for you? (undecided.) _

Whoever the “sun” person shows up more and more. Will could only think of one person that could shine like the sun.

Jason Grace.

He‘s blonde-haired and blue-eyed, the epitome of California Surfer Dude. Why wouldn’t the poet have a crush on him? Will thought he did, then he realized that Jason was very much straight, and that turned him off real fast. Besides, he and Piper are pretty solid and really cute, too.

So the poet isn’t at all potentially free for interest in Will. Just his luck.

So he calls off his search for whoever the poet was. He tries to keep the moping in his room, but it fails when he reads the next edition.

_ all the world’s a stage, my friend _

_ and so i exit stage left. _

_ it seems impossible not to join her _

_ i’m halfway there already. _

_ if even you became a dead fish in the current _

_ what am i doing here _

_ she taught me beauty in everything _

_ but now the skies are grey _

_ his hearts broken and you can’t fix it _

_ you hypocrite, they whisper to me _

_ i suffer in eternal darkness _

_ maybe that’s why i’m so unoriginal _

_ the sun grew dimmer, the stars whisper to me _

_ i never thought you could look like a shadow of me. _

His heart seizes with terror.

He’s still at school because his siblings had band practice and archery club and he was the only person with a drivers license out of all of them, for some reason, so he was stuck with DD duty.

It’s too late to run to the newspaper offices and ask about the poet because Cecil had left a while ago, meaning the daily meeting was over. He wonders why none of them at least try to help this guy. Clearly he needs help. ( _Stage left_? What the _hell_ does _that_ mean?)

He’s been blessed with an active imagination, which helped him memorize parts of important organs like the heart, the brain, and the digestive system, but all he sees now are cadavers, each dead by some horrible, gruesome form of suicide, and he wants to bolt and hurl and cry.

It seems like the poet’s last ray of hope is gone and Will wonders if there will be an announcement on the overheard speakers and an assembly an edition after the poet stops writing, revealing his name, and Will runs from the vending machine he was staring at and out the nearest doors that lead outside.

He feels sick to his stomach as he stumbles out into the courtyard. The only person he sees is a dark figure sketching in the shade of the school’s largest tree, and Will is glad it’s only him as he makes his way over to his own favorite tree, a ways away from the big one.

He collapses on the ground, immediately pulling his knees to his chest as he feels the afternoon sun beat down on his head. _In. Out. In. Out_. He repeats the mantra in his head, trying to calm his emotions and focus. He can’t just go and make assumptions. Besides, it’s only the fourth edition. It’s been two months since the start of school. 

This is something he should’ve gone over with Piper.

The idea that maybe one day the poems might stop showing up in the newspaper and the worst may actually be what happened is petrifying to Will.

He probably should’ve also asked Cecil if the poet had submitted anything the past two years, too.

Also, he really wants to meet this person now, but he’s terrified that once he knows this person, it’s all become real. The person he knows through depressing couplets will become someone he could lose in an instant by their own hand and he won’t be able to save them.

(He may have a tiny crush on this person.)

(Not so tiny.)

(He doesn’t know anymore.)

His phone buzzes in his back pocket and he goes to pull it out. Kayla’s done, but Austin’s still got at least thirty minutes.

He’s about to put his phone away and dither more about his poet (he feels like the poet should be doing this, but oh well), but a shadow blocks the sunlight, reprieving him from its glare. “Hi.”

Standing before him is someone cloaked in a large black trench coat and skinny leather pants and Doc Martins, all of which dominate his figure so it’s really just dark brown eyes peering at him from between locks of dark hair, his pale skin a contrast from the death-boy vibe he had going.

“Hi,” he replies, looking up at him. He’s maybe a junior. Will’s seen him sometimes, hanging out with one of the girls that hang out with Leo Valdez, or scribbling something in the notebook he currently had clutched to his chest in some random corner of school. “What’s up?”

“You’re Will Solace.” It isn’t a question, but a statement. His voice is accented, but holy shit it shakes Will to his core.

”Yeah. You?”

“Nico di Angelo.” Even his name was cute. Nico of Angels. “Um, my friend Piper told me you were looking for the guy that writes couplets for the Olympian?”

“Oh,” Will pauses. “Uh, sure. Why?”

Nico looks at him like he’s being an idiot, and it might be possibly in _Will’s Top Ten Cutest Things in the World_ list. “I am him.”

Will feels like his eyeballs could fall out of his head, which is biologically impossible. He scrambles to his feet, and now Nico seems smaller now that they’re standing to their full heights. “Oh. Oh my god. Hi. Um, hi.”

“Hi.” Now Nico is staring at him like Will’s being weird, and that look is a close second to the first in terms of cuteness. A grin splits across Will’s face because his poet is too damn cute, and apparently that makes Nico blush, and Will’s officially found the cutest thing he’s ever seen. “What?”

“Um.” Will can’t stop smiling enough to get his damn question out. “You wanna get coffee sometimes?”

Nico’s eyes widen and he nearly drops his notebook. “Yes. Um, yeah. Yes. Absolutely.”

Neither move, brown eyes and blue eyes mapping out the other’s face and endearing smiles forming.

Will’s phone goes off first, and he reads his texts to find out that Kayla and Austin had decided to take the bus for reasons unspecified (although Austin sent a winky face, so Will was pretty sure both of them had seen him and Nico at some point). Nico stepped backwards to leave, but Will caught his wrist, so quick he didn’t realize he was doing it.

Will loosens his grip on the younger boy so Nico could pull away if he wanted to but he doesn’t and Will opens his mouth. And then closes it. And then, “You wanna get coffee now?”

The corner of Nico’s lips pulled upwards. “It’s too late for coffee.”

Will just shrugs. “Hot chocolate, then I don’t care.”

Nico smiles, and now Will has a new Number One for the _Most Beautiful Things He’s Seen_. “Sure.”

The last edition of newspaper has these seven couplets in them:

_ my only sunshine (i’ve forgotten the rest of the words) _

_ to embrace the shadows and reveal color. _

_ you told me i could stop the pain and not forget her _

_ i thought they were the same thing before you _

_ i’ve never fallen from quite this high (into your ocean eyes) _

_ your embrace is as welcoming as the arms i thought the ocean had _

_ i clutched your shirt and told you please dont leave me _

_ you said i won’t because you will always be with me _

_ i used to be alone in the most crowded of places _

_ but there doesn’t seem to be anyone around (when i’m with you) _

_ he whispers i love you every moment he gets so i always remember _

_ i reply as best i can and he always hears it, though i’ve never said it _

_ i was searching for a weapon to slay my demons (i was alone) _

_ but the sun showed me there was one in my hands (i wasn’t alone) _

**Author's Note:**

> See if you can find these references (some of Nico’s poems are song lyrics, so I can’t take all the credit):  
> \- boulevard of broken dreams by green day  
> \- can’t help falling in love by elvis presley  
> \- jupiter demigoode high school !  
> \- honey honey by abba  
> \- as you like it by shakespeare  
> \- you are my sunshine by johnny cash  
> \- ocean eyes by billie eilish  
> \- looking for alaska by john green (if you squint)  
> \- title: turtles all the way down by john green (you really gotta squint huh)
> 
> Find all of my socials on [hdnprplflwrs.carrd.co](https://hdnprplflwrs.carrd.co/). LEAVE KUDOS AND COMMENTS, I love reading them and receiving validation. (thanks)
> 
> **Links for the various crises happening in the world:**  
>  Black Lives Matter petitions, donations, and other resources here [HERE](https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/).  
> If you can't donate, here's a [YOUTUBE PLAYLIST](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlhfJSrlPNthnoD1XFDHzmdf6Mpt2pe-2&feature=share) where all proceeds from the videos are being donated to various BLM charities.  
> Yemen Crisis links [HERE](https://yemencrisis.carrd.co/).  
> COVID-19 and others (U.S. Specific) [HERE](https://www.acf.hhs.gov/otip/news/covid-19-resources-services-support).
> 
> MAKE SURE YOU ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE !!!! There are absentee and mail-in voting guides to help online due to the pandemic and everything else that’s been going on, and make sure to get your votes in by OCTOBER 22ND so that it has two weeks to ship in and be counted on ELECTION DAY IN NOVEMBER.
> 
> ALWAYS STAY SAFE AND WEAR A MASK!!!!


End file.
